Leftover
by Virodeil
Summary: *Caught Is Caught Is Cuddled Series* – Loki got left behind during the retreat after Thor's invasion into Jötunheim. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?


Leftover  
By Rey

 **Loki got left behind during the retreat after Thor's invasion into Jötunheim. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?**

Author's notes: Happy birthday to me! At last, I manage to give myself a birthday present again. I hope you like this! The latter half was a little bit hurried, and the whole story might be too sickly sweet for some of you, but still….

1.

The silence that now permeates the jagged landscape of ice and snow is deafening. To think that, just a few moments ago, a battle raged in the area, fought by two sets of bitter enemies….

Well, but they are gone, now.

 _All_ of them, except for one.

Loki, the second son of Odin Allfather and Frigga Allmother, prince of the Royal Family of Asgard and the second heir to the throne, did not get to the huddle of defeated Asgardians in time. The Bifrost touched down rather unexpectedly just before they were going to be slaughtered, carrying a furious Odin with it, riding atop Sleipnir, and the King of Asgard spent some time bargaining with Laufey, the leader of the frost giants; however, Loki had been driven far from his compatriots by then. He tried his best to regroup with the others, but the frost giants kept fending him off, albeit – _strangely_ – non-lethally. In consequence, when the light of the Bifrost touched down again on the gloomy land to transport the Asgardians home, he had not made any significant progress towards his father and the band of Asgardians he had come to this broken realm with. Afterwards, he had no other choice but to try to find a hideout somewhere and wait till the frost giants left the battlefield, in hope that Heimdal – the operator of the Bifrost and the gatekeeper of Asgard – would open the way for him with no enemy in sight.

The lone Asgardian, shaking with emotion and a residue of adrenaline instead of with chill, found a tiny, cramped cave to huddle in for the time being, located half-way up a short cliff overlooking the battlefield. From there, he observed how the monstrous blue beasts gathered their casualties and departed the ragged piece of land, bathed with the blood of their own kind. There were method and organisation to the grim task, and there was even a sense of quiet, tired grief blanketing the whole scene.

They looked _sentient_. From a certain point of view, one could even say that they looked _civilised_.

It disturbed the Asgardian prince when the evidence was before his eyes, and it still does now, when the battlefield has been long deserted. A thickening blanket of snow has slowly but surely begun to erase the remaining signs of battle, but the scene refuses to leave him, dancing mockingly before his mind's eye. It, alongside the deepening chill and the inexplicable sense telling him that a blizard is brewing nearby, is actually why he is so impatient to go home, to return to the familiar existence he has been leading for all these centuries.

If only Heimdal would cooperate! he has been yelling for that damned man from right where the Bifrost touched down – which is now recogniseable only by the faint residue of magical signature it left behind on the rocky ground – thrice today, and Heimdal is yet to answer him with the familiar beam of multicoloured light.

In the end, chilled by something that is not at all caused by the plummeting temperature in his surroundings, and laden by the silence that is heightened by the still-falling snow all round him, he vacates the spot and returns to his hideout. Maybe a few frost giants are spying on him from afar, outside of his kenning, and thus Heimdal thinks it is yet unwise to open a portal to Asgard? If so, he could try calling for that pesky gate-keeper later, then, when the watch on him has gone lax.

 _If_ so.

But Loki, the ergi trickster, the male seiðr-worker, the unmanly baby brother of Thor the nearly crowned heir apparent of Asgard, doubts it.

He is not worthy enough for such consideration.

Never enough.

2.

Hunger has been hounding the lone Asgardian huddled in the cliff-side little hole lately, relentless and increasingly vocal. But it is not what at last drives him away from his hideout. The inexplicable sense of brewing blizard _is_.

The blizard will be _big_ , regardless of however in the universe he _knows_ about it, and Loki refuses to be caught out in it in the open.

That, _in addition_ to being hungry, homesick, and a smidge betrayed, a smidge abandoned, makes for one miserable sentient slogging through ever-deepening snow _back_ to the direction of Laufey's palace.

The wind begins to pick up when he is already too far away from his previous shelter, and yet a longer road remains before he could _possibly_ take refuge somewhere in the palace. Worse still, this coming blizard _somehow_ brings chaotic wild seiðr with it, as if it would be a storm of magic, not only snow, and this new element prevents him from shielding himself from the cold.

So, hungry, lost, dejected, chilled to the bone and anxious about his survival in this realm of monsters, Loki Odinson trudges along without his comfort shields. His usual defensive wards get stripped away last, but he can barely think by this point, let alone marvel on how easily the wild seiðr peels away _layers_ of wards hundreds of years old, as if peeling a fruit. Yet indeed, the closer the blizard gets to his location, the thicker the chaotic wild seiðr is.

It is a very, very bizarre and somewhat painful experience.

It feels like, with every slogging step he takes, he loses a bit of clothing, until he walks naked amidst the swirling and whipping snowflakes; and the wind still rips away at him even then, now taking chunks off his own body and freezing him in the meantime.

He is already one shivering, teeth-chattering, whimpering wreck even though he seems to have just reached the half-way point of his journey.

Three quarters in, and it feels like he is part of the blizard of snow and magic, no longer a freezing hapless ás, with how much the seiðr-charged wind has taken from him. The deep, deep chill that his body is racked with has lessened some time ago, but it returns now, somewhat different than before. Senses that he did not know he possesses before now come to life and promptly overwhelm him, making him long for someone to hold him, to shield him, to anchor him, so that he is no longer just a part of his surroundings.

It remains a fancy thought, a fancy wish. He encounters nothing and nobody on the way; no jötun, no native animal, not even a bed of bushes he might huddle inside.

He does not quite realise it, when his stumbling, tripping feet begin to tread on a smooth, even surface. He does not quite understand it, when the surrounding noise shifts into alarmed exclamations from deep voices. He is not aware, at that, what the noise he himself is making deep in his throat might be interpreted as.

A pair of hands lift him with gentle swiftness into a snug embrace. The world _runs_ for a moment. And then, accompanied with murmured voices, his shivering self is deposited onto a rather soft surface, both in texture and quality. Another soft something covers him from shoulder to toe, next, before a gentle humming picks up seemingly from all directions, soothing and anchoring.

Loki Odinson falls into oblivion with a small smile on his face, following the continuous string of the wordless melody that is, somehow, strangely familiar.

3.

Waking up in a comfortable surface is not a new experience for Loki. He is, after all, the second son of Odin King, therefore the second in line to the throne, and this station in life does afford one luxuries that the commoners do not often – or at all – get. But waking up cradled in somebody's arms as though he were a baby _is_.

Stranger yet, the more his senses return to him, the more he realises what is familiar from his surroundings despite the bizarre newness of his temporary bed. Pleas, restrained arguments, demands couched as requests, long-winded explanations, short-and-dignified replies to all those….

He is in an audience chamber somewhere, and a leader is holding an audience with their following, like a king with his subjects.

In fact, the leader sounds very much like a king – like _Odin_.

And in fact, _Loki is cradled in his arms_.

The hapless ás tries to lie quietly – for the time being – in his deceptively cosy prison, hoping not to draw attention to himself and his conscious state. His recent memory chooses a very unfortunate time to load into his sleep-muzzy mind, however, and he cannot help the quiver of apprehension that racks him on the realisation.

He was trying to return to Laufey's ruin of a palace, before the strange blizard could tear him apart more than it had.

His feet hit _stone floor_ next, before he was spirited away.

There were alarmed noises from deep voices, then, and there was a pleasant, helpful _and familiar_ humming from all round him, afterwards, alongside some soft cocoon.

He must have been captured by the frost giants. And now….

And now–!

He must be in the throneroom, and his present captor is….

His present captor is–!

He shakes harder.

And in response, his temporary bed _shifts_ , and he is cradled closer, with his mouth – gently, carefully, somehow – aimed towards… towards…!

He struggles, attempting to shy away. Loki Odinson is _not_ a babe-in-arms, and he is definitely _not_ about to suckle for milk or comfort like one.

But the huge hand gently rubbing at the back of his neck up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down feels so _good_ there, and he finds himself relaxing ever so slightly, both in body and in mind.

His captor neatly takes the chance.

And, worst of all, Loki finds himself _not_ disliking the experience.

Far from it, in fact.

4.

With all his past interactions with Laufey, Loki would not have ever thought – or imagined even in his wildest dreams – that the leader of the blue giants could be so… happy; not satisfied, or smug, or justified, or vindicated or the like, but _happy_ , warmly and roundly contented with life. Laufey himself apparently finds his new-found state of emotions astonishing, judging from the wide-eyed looks he keeps giving his captive. And the said captive cannot deny that the new-found happiness of the formerly hardened, bitter jötun seems to stem from _him_ , of all beings, as absurd as the mere thought of it is, let alone the reality that he is experiencing.

At present, he is seated in the lap of a humming Laufey, having just endured a thorough bath given by the latter like a baby, complete with cuddles that he did not manage to escape from, and _the king of Asgard's number-one enemy_ is combing his scraggly, shoulder-length hair with infinite care.

He feels like the cherished little daughter of an adoring mother who has lost her for a long time and never thought of gaining her back.

A huge, blue, fearsome, deep-voiced mother with a warrior's bearing that is nonetheless gentler than even Sif, Thor's only female companion.

Absurdly, Laufey reminds him of Frigga, his mother, and his homesickness returns with quite a vengeance on that thought.

He must get the curse that – as he realised during the bath – has been making him look like a jötun off, escape Laufey's all-too-close attention, then find a way home without the use of the Bifrost. He will go mad if he stays here in this hostile land any longer!

The soft, delicate pieces of shimmering fabric that are now being settled on his person look so gorgeous and feel so comfortable, though, despite the fact that they seem more apt to be called decorations than garments. And the way an ever-humming Laufey puts the airy attire on him – if only his old nursemaids ever treated him with such care and warmth and gentleness, instead of tutting and clucking at his colouring and thinness and smallness…!

If only his own mother ever found the time and attention to completely and unhurriedly dress him like this when he was at that age, without being distracted by Thor or her ladies-in-waiting or Thor or his nursemaids or Thor or his father or some messenger from a courtier….

 _If only_. Just _if only_.

But this experience is _real_ , and the tender, nuzzling kiss Laufey has just treated the top of his newly arranged hair to–!

And the _uncommanded_ obeisance the room full of fearsome frost giants gives the pair of them as Laufey carries him into it after the makeover session….

Here, Loki Odinson is not a spare, a disappointment, a scapegoat, a failsafe, an upstart, an ergi weakling, or a pretty coward.

Here, he can take up the identity of another person – maybe Laufey's own child, whom he might look so much like – and run away with it forever.

Here are monsters, and he is in the guise of a monster, in the arms of the _king_ of monsters at that, but he has never felt more like a prince among dignified civilisation before this.

Loki Laufeyson. If only….


End file.
